


At the Bottom of a Great Pit

by AllegoriesInMediasRes



Category: The Scarlet Letter - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, I wrote this when I was 16, Incomplete, Pre-Canon, Probably won’t finish it now either, WIP, and never finished it, but thought I’d put it up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-13 18:11:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21498349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllegoriesInMediasRes/pseuds/AllegoriesInMediasRes
Summary: The squalls and shrieks of the child had long since quieted, and Hester Prynne was devoutly thankful for it-- if she had a right to be devout anymore.Hester, immediately after Prynne’s birth. WIP.
Relationships: Arthur Dimmesdale/Hester Prynne, Hester Prynne & Pearl Prynne
Kudos: 4





	At the Bottom of a Great Pit

**Author's Note:**

> Advisory note: This takes place immediately after Hester gives birth to Prynne in her jail cell, and there is a brief mention of postpartum depression and contemplated harm to a child.

The squalls and shrieks of the child had long since quieted, and Hester Prynne was devoutly thankful for it-- if she had a right to be devout anymore. 

The midwife engaged to help her during her labor had been clearly disgusted by her patient and how low she had fallen. She had not spoken a word of her contempt aloud, but the cold look in her eyes and the brusque tone of her instructions clearly conveyed her repulsion. Hester could imagine well enough that she, and most of the other townspeople, were appalled that the young woman from England whom the whole town had pitied as a potential widow the past two years had repaid their kindly concern by satisfying her carnal lusts with whichever man had been foolish enough to succumb to her advances, acting the wanton and shaming them all. 

Only out of the coldest sense of Christian charity had the midwife seen to it that Hester was safely delivered of her baby, and even then, the infant had scarcely taken its first breath before the midwife was gone, eager to be rid of the company of an adulteress and her bastard child. The midwife had at least had the courtesy to inform Hester in a toneless voice that the child was a healthy girl before she left, leaving Hester to unravel the mysteries of motherhood by herself, in a dark jail cell and with no earthly friend.

Fortunately, having made the acquaintance of a young mother in the village prior to the discovery of her pregnancy and her imprisonment, Hester possessed more than the barest understanding of what happened after the birth. She had cleaned the child as best she could with the basin of water and the rough cloth in the corner of her cell, and swaddled the child in a rag ripped from the meager blanket upon her bed. She had successfully nursed the baby, after a few false starts, encouraging the squalling bundle to latch onto her mother’s breast and satisfy her hunger. Her friend had eagerly described the experience of providing her child with sustenance from her own body, and how it had formed a connection between them unlike any bond with another human being she had ever experienced. Hester had been too exhausted to fully appreciate the experience, but she had rested slightly easier knowing that, whatever other failures stained her soul, she was capable at least of nourishing her child as any mother ought to be able to.

Nothing could have prepared her, however, for the _ crying. _Hester knew, of course, that all babies cried, and her friend had struggled initially in the first couple of weeks after her child was born, when the babe would cry at odd hours of the day and night. Her friend’s stories, however, had not prepared her for just how _ trying _ a baby’s crying could be, especially when she had just given birth in a cramped prison cell. She had done her best to soothe the child’s crying, but her efforts had quieted the girl for only a few minutes at best before she resumed asserting her agitation. 

Hester repressed a mild shudder at the memory of how the baby’s screams had echoed in the stone prison cell. Even now, hours later, when all was silent and still, some part of her would mistake the sound of the baby snuffling or shifting in sleep for the beginnings of another piteously thin wail and have her nerves jangling again. At times, Hester had been driven to fits of sobbing herself. In her darker moments, she had wildly imagined dashing the baby against the wall and seeing its brains splatter out across the jagged stones, its wretched crying finally silenced. Some motherly instinct had stayed her hand, however, and she had continued to pacify the child with the more time-honored methods of nursing and rocking.

Finally, however, the girl-child had worn herself out, and she slumbered peacefully now in her mother’s arms. 

Hester would have done the same, but although she had been given birth twelve hours ago, and labored for thirty-six before that, she simply could not bring herself to think of sleep. A kind of nervous energy had rooted itself in her, refusing to allow her a moment's rest, even when she was drained of every ounce of strength she possessed. She could not have slept even if God Himself willed it.

Gently, she slipped the baby from her arms onto the trundle-bed that adjoined the hard cot Hester had slept on these past six weeks or so ever since her pregnancy became too pronounced to be concealed and she was jailed. The child slept on, and Hester eased herself off the bed, gingerly stretching her legs. She was still weak from her labor, and it was very likely unwise to move about so soon afterward, but she hardly cared.

Hester padded unsteadily across the narrow length of her jail cell to its only window, her arms wrapped tightly around herself to ward off the chill. It was March, and while spring was approaching, the nights were still bitingly cold, most of all for someone in a jail cell. The stone walls barely kept out the chilly drafts, and seemed to emanate a chill of their own. Through the heavily barred window, however, she could see that daybreak was approaching. 

Hester was tall, but even so, she had to crane her neck to watch the morning through the narrow window set high in the wall. A vast, colorless sky leisurely turned the pale tint of early-morning blue, as the first rays of the sun spread out over the land. Not a cloud marred the horizon; it would be a clear day. 

Hester realized dimly that it was the first sunrise of her daughter’s life, but no joy registered in her bleary mind. The rest of her life, and that of her daughter’s, stretched before her: an uncertain, treacherous path. 

Hester continued to gaze at the dawn, unblinkingly, unseeingly, her mind numbly pondering what lay in store for her, when the _ clang _ of the prison door jolted her out of her stupor. She was disoriented for a few moments, as though as she had just surfaced from a deep lake, when she saw the jailer holding victuals for her to break her fast. Instinctively, she glanced at her child and saw that she had been startled awake by the door.

Silently cursing the foolish jailer, she rushed to the bed, taking the child up and soothing her before she could begin crying again. Eventually, the child’s whimpers subsided, and she lay awake but placidly in her mother’s arms. 

“I trust you are well, after the birth?”

Hester jerked her gaze to the jailer. She was taken aback both by the fact that he had asked any question at all, since he usually abstained from any conversation with her, and its absurdity. Hester knew well she must look like a beggar girl, with her dishevelled hair, crumpled shift, and wan complexion. Did he intend to mock her? She squirmed awkwardly under his steady, impassive gaze, before realizing he actually expected an answer.

“Well enough. I thank you for your concern.” The words were blatantly false, but Hester kept her head held high as she answered, and her voice level. Her dignity was all she had left to cling to, after everything that had happened. It was all that had borne her this far, and all that would carry her through the ordeal yet to come.

“The child?” 

Hester fixed him with a cold stare. She had been kept in this prison cell for six weeks, right through the bleakest January and February she had ever known, even though she had been more than seven months gone with child when her condition was discovered. She had been mocked, scorned, and interrogated ruthlessly by the stern magistrates, demanding to know why she had done this and who the father of her child was. She'd even been half-terrified that the midwife recruited to help her was bribed to ensure the child did not live. It was a miracle that the child was not miscarried, early, stillborn, or in some other way marred by the difficulties her mother had had to endure. In all the time of her confinement, not one ounce of pity or compassion had been spared for the innocent babe in her womb. Why now, did they try to ensure that she was well?

The jailed realized she was not going to answer. He set the tray on the rude table next to her bed and made to leave. He was just about to close the door when she called after him. “What is to become of me?”

The door stilled. He opened the door a fraction and looked at her. “I beg your pardon?”

“Now that my child has been born, what is to become of me?”

“That remains for the magistrates to decide,” the jailer said curtly, and with that, he slammed the door.

Hester sank onto the bed, waves of panic sweeping over her and leaving her heart pounding and her mind dizzy. Almost automatically, she cradled the child tightly to her bosom, even when it began protesting, as though by doing so, she could absorb some of its blissful obliviousness. 

The possibilities for her future danced in her mind’s eye, none of them good. She knew better than to think that she would escape punishment, at least in some form, for what she had done. She had thoroughly scandalized the town of Boston, and these Puritans did not forget sins. To them, a sin against God was a sin against the entire community, and merited immediate and lasting ramifications, both to purify the sinner and to issue a stern warning to the rest of the community. 

Only two certainties sustained her: that she might attract some sympathy for being a young widow, and that Arthur would be sitting on the council who would decide her punishment. Even that leniency would only stretch so far, however. She could be hung for her crime, or branded, or placed in the stocks for hours or even days. She could be banished from the town, or made to give up her child-- a possibility that made her heart clench. Her daughter was the one good thing that had come out of this whole mess, the one reason she had not to regret her life, and if she was made to part with her, she did not know what she would do.

As much for herself as for the baby, she pressed her lips to her forehead, trying to breathe in her scent, reminding herself that her child was well and alive.

The magistrates, the villagers, and perhaps even Arthur himself would say that this child was a punishment from God and the fruit of sin, meant to be a living symbol of her infidelity and a constant reminder of her shame, and they were right in some ways. But if this child was a punishment, it was also Hester’s chance to make things right, a way for her to make amends for the sin she had committed, an innocent life that deserved to be regarded as such. 

Hester was perhaps the only person in all of New England who would be able to see past the shameful circumstances surrounding this child’s birth and provide her with the love and affection that she needed. If her daughter was taken away to be brought up and reared by strangers, she would grow up having shame heaped upon her and made to feel like an unwanted embarrassment. Hester knew how the world treated bastard children; she recalled all too well from her childhood in England the hopeless faces of illegitimate children, whether they were crammed into orphanages or left to beg on the streets. Those fortunate enough to be adopted into families were always relegated to the side and treated like vermin, constantly second to their legitimate ‘siblings’.

She would do everything in her power to prevent that from happening to her precious child, but she knew deep down that that was unlikely. She had begotten this child through her recklessness, after all, and it was all but guaranteed that the babe would pay the price for her parents’ sin. 

A sob clawed its way from her chest and up her throat, and before she knew it, she was rocking back and forth and crying in harmony along with the baby. The baby, her baby, her child, her child that she had paid everything for, just like the merchant man who sold everything he had for one pearl of great price. The only difference was that in doing so, he had gained the kingdom of Heaven through his faith, while Hester had secured only misfortune for herself. “My pearl of great price,” she whispered out loud, cradling the child and clutching her tightly to her chest. “My pearl, my pearl.”

Light steadily filtered into the cell as the sun rose, and the nighttime chill dissipated. Mother and daughter remained on the bed, locked in a tight embrace that only their growling stomachs interrupted. Hester was famished after her labor, and, to her surprise, found that she had good appetite. She broke her fast with the gruel and bread provided for her, noting that the portions were substantially larger than usual. Perhaps the arrival of an innocent child into the jail cell had awakened some base instinct of empathy in her jailers. After she had eaten, she nursed the child and then rocked her until she was still. 

Hester settled into bed and was about to drop off to sleep. It seemed unthinkable to go to bed right after breaking her fast, and normally, she would have chided such sloth in herself, but life in a jail cell left little opportunity for hard work. Beyond eating, washing, and tending to the child-- she really ought to give her a name-- remaining awake could do her no good other than to fray her nerves, so she settled in.

The door opened, however, and rising from the bed, she gasped out loud when she saw that Arthur was standing there. The jailer informed her in a bland tone, “The Reverend Dimmesdale to visit you.”

The instant the door had shut, the two found themselves in a tight embrace. Who had moved first, neither could say, but it didn’t matter. It had been months since they had been together and alone, and all that mattered was that, for a short blessed while, they had some privacy.

**Author's Note:**

> So I started this back when we read the Scarlet Letter in high school, and I never finished it, hence the abrupt ending. This probably will not be completed, but I thought I’d put it up for posterity anyway.


End file.
